GEOGRAPHY

In a classic book on the natural setting and people of Chile, Benjamín
Subercaseaux Zañartu, a Chilean writer, describes the country's
geography as loca (crazy). The book's English translator
renders this term as "extravagant." Whether crazy or
extravagant, there is little question that Chile's territorial shape is
certainly among the world's most unusual. From north to south, Chile
extends 4,270 kilometers, and yet it only averages 177 kilometers east
to west. On a map, Chile looks like a long ribbon reaching from the
middle of South America's west coast straight down to the southern tip
of the continent, where it curves slightly eastward. Cape Horn, the
southernmost point in the Americas, where the Pacific and Atlantic
oceans turbulently meet, is Chilean territory. Chile's northern
neighbors are Peru and Bolivia, and its border with Argentina to the
east, at 5,150 kilometers, is one of the world's longest.

Chile's shape was determined by the fact that it began as a Spanish
settlement on the western side of the mighty cordillera of the Andes, in
the central part of the country. This range, which includes the two
tallest peaks in the Americas--Aconcagua (6,959 meters) and Nevado Ojos
del Salado (6,880 meters)--is a formidable barrier, whose passes to the
Argentine side are covered by a heavy blanket of snow during the winter
months. As a result, Chile could expand beyond its original colonial
territory only to the south and north. The colony grew southward by
occupying lands populated by indigenous groups, and it grew northward by
occupying sections of both Peru and Bolivia that were eventually awarded
to Chile in the aftermath of the War of the Pacific (1879-83).

The northern two-thirds of Chile lie on top of the telluric Nazca
Plate, which, moving eastward about ten centimeters a year, is forcing
its way under the continental plate of South America. This movement has
resulted in the formation of the Peru-Chile Trench, which lies beyond a
narrow band of coastal waters off the northern two-thirds of the
country. The trench is about 150 kilometers wide and averages about
5,000 meters in depth. At its deepest point, just north of the port of
Antofagasta, it plunges to 8,066 meters. Although the ocean's surface
obscures this fact, most of Chile lies at the edge of a profound
precipice.

The same telluric displacements that created the Peru-Chile Trench
make the country highly prone to earthquakes. During the twentieth
century, Chile has been struck by twenty-eight major earthquakes, all
with a force greater than 6.9 on the Richter scale. The strongest of
these occurred in 1906 (registering an estimated 8.4 on the Richter
scale) and in 1960 (reaching 8.75). This latter earthquake occurred on
May 22, the day after another major quake measuring 7.25 on the Richter
scale, and covered an extensive section of south-central Chile. It
caused a tidal wave that decimated several fishing villages in the south
and raised or lowered sections of the coast as much as two meters. The
clash between the earth's surface plates has also generated the Andes, a
geologically young mountain range that, in Chilean territory alone,
includes about 620 volcanoes, many of them active. Almost sixty of these
had erupted in the twentieth century by the early 1990s. More than half
of Chile's land surface is volcanic in origin.

About 80 percent of the land in Chile is made up of mountains of some
form or other. Most Chileans live near or on these mountains. The
majestically snowcapped Andes and their precordillera elevations provide
an ever-present backdrop to much of the scenery, but there are other,
albeit less formidable, mountains as well. Although they seemingly can
appear anywhere, the non-Andean mountains usually form part of
transverse and coastal ranges. The former, located most
characteristically in the near north and the far north natural regions,
extend with various shapes from the Andes to the ocean, creating valleys
with an east-west direction. The latter are evident mainly in the center
of the country and create what is commonly called the Central Valley
(Valle Central) between them and the Andes. In the far south, the
Central Valley runs into the ocean's waters. At this location, the
higher elevations of the coastal range facing the Andes become a
multiplicity of islands, forming an intricate labyrinth of channels and
fjords that have been an enduring challenge to maritime navigators.

Much of Chile's coastline is rugged, with surf that seems to explode
against the rocks lying at the feet of high bluffs. This collision of
land and sea gives way every so often to lovely beaches of various
lengths, some of them encased by the bluffs. The Humboldt current, which
originates northwest of the Antarctic Peninsula (which just into the
Bellingshausen Sea) and runs the full length of the Chilean coast, makes
the water frigid. Swimming at Chile's popular beaches in the central
part of the country, where the water gets no warmer than 15° C in the
summer, requires more than a bit of fortitude.

Chilean territory extends as far west as Polynesia. The best known of
Chile's Pacific Islands is Easter Island (Isla de Pascua, also known by
its Polynesian name of Rapa Nui), with a population of 2,800 people.
Located 3,600 kilometers west of Chile's mainland port of Caldera, just
below the Tropic of Capricorn, Easter Island provides Chile a gateway to
the Pacific. It is noted for its 867 monoliths (Moais), which are huge
(up to twenty meters high) and mysterious, expressionless faces sculpted
of volcanic stone. The Islas Juan Fernández, located 587 kilometers
west of Valparaíso, are the locale of a small fishing settlement. They
are famous for their lobster and the fact that one of the islands, Isla
Robinson Crusoe, is where Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for Daniel
Defoe's novel, was marooned for about four years.